You have just moved into a new city but you do not know your way around.
You have just heard from a friend about a new eat out that has opened
up in the neighborhood but you do not know the directions to get
there or you simply have to go travel across the town to attend to
some business but you need directions to reach your destination. You
go the old-fashioned way and buy a map of the town to get there which
is fussy and hard to understand. But all this has a quick and easy
fix now called map search engines. They provide with online maps with
easy and detailed driving directions to the desired destination.
These driving instructions can be saved as photos and can also be
exported to your mobile phone or GPS navigation system. A number of
such search engines are available for access on the web but the most
used ones are My Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing maps and Yahoo Maps and
Directions.

Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology powered by
Google providing a number of web-based mapping services including My
Google Maps, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit and maps embedded on
third party websites via Google Maps Application Programme Interface
(API). It provides driving directions from point A to point B,
simply, enter your location as point A and the address of your
destination as point B, Google maps then displays the directions on
the map and in words in the panel left of the window. These
directions are available for four modes of transportation: driving,
public transit, walking and bicycling. Cross-border routes can also
be discovered on Google Maps. Through its Ride Finder feature, Google
Maps helps its users to search and locate available cab, limousine
and shuttle services in and nearest to your locality showing the
actual location of the vehicle in the area. It also has a weather
feature providing updates about the latest weather conditions and
forecasts weather to help you plan your journey accordingly. It has
recently introduced a new feature called My Google Maps which allows
you to create your own maps on the website. You can store and
organize the places on the map that you have visited so you can
quickly find them again if the need be and can also rate them
according to your likability. This geographic data can also be shared
with other users of the service by making your maps available for the
public to view. Although, other map search engines are also providing
similar services but users find Google more easy and convenient to
use.

MapQuest Maps is another map search engine that is quite similar to Google
Maps. It can also act as a route planner by providing you with
driving directions and maps which is as easy as entering starting and
end addresses. Type in your address and that of your destination and
the search engine displays the directions in a matter of seconds. It
gives you information about the local traffic and road conditions;
which routes are congested at the moment and which roads or highways
are under construction or temporarily closed. Recently a new feature
has been launched on the MapQuest maps website, the Neighborhood
Guide which actually acts as a guide to restaurants, hospitals,
schools and other enterprises and places in your neighborhood. Since
this feature is relatively new so initially it is operational only
for locations in the UK and USA. What is different about this map
search engine is that it offers you to make reservations for hotel,
flight and rental cars via the website. So while searching for
directions in another city or country you can book a flight, hotel
and rental car on the same website without wasting any time. Like My
Google Maps, MapQuest Open by MapQuest maps allows you to create your
own maps to organize and save your places and share them with other
users of the search engine.

Bing maps are also a frequently used mapping service which is a part of
Microsoft's Bing suite of search engine. It too provides with
driving directions to your desired destination with updates on local
traffic and road conditions. The traffic information on Bing maps is
color coded with 4 colors relaying information on the traffic volume
ranging from lightest to heaviest traffic volumes. The traffic and
road information is also displayed as clear flow which basically
displays the information in real time to help you avoid traffic
congestion and it also anticipates traffic patterns. It offers you
five different points of vision: road view, aerial view, bird's eye
view, street side view and the 3-D view. According to a number of
users, the best thing about Bing maps is that it provides navigation
tips using landmarks for example take left from Burger King which is
actually quite helpful in finding your way through streets.

Yahoo Maps and Directions helps you to find locations, directions,
businesses and other data related to geography. Like all others,
Yahoo maps and Directions provides maps in regular map and satellite
view but they can also be viewed in a hybrid view in which the
display window is divided to show you both map and the satellite
view. Apart from giving out driving directions 'to' the desired
destination, 'from' directions can also be discovered using the
Reverse Directions or the Round trip options which can be really
helpful to you while traveling in new areas. People like Yahoo maps
and Directions because of its clean interface without pointless
advertisements being thrown at you. One drawback is that maps and
information cannot be saved as pictures or directly exported to
mobile or GPS device.

Map search engines are convenient and time saving with a variety of
services to choose from which not only provide with basic directions
and route planning services but also provide you with many other
features which save you a great deal of time and effort.